Blender - Cascadeur - Unreal Engine - Clothes
Blender
Base Modeling
Use your favorite tools to model your base mesh.
Metarig
Create the skeleton (from a template if possible).
It’s actually important to rename the rig “Armature”, Unreal will recognize that name and won’t add an additional root bone, which would interfere with the root motion.
Renaming each bone to match Unreal’s Mannequin Skeleton will help for retargeting animations within Unreal.
Once done, you can save your metarig via Rigify button “Encode Metarig to Python”.
Clothes
Patterns
Simulate
It’s easier to simulate and freeze (“Apply Visual Geometry to Mesh” - Ctrl+A) each cloth one at a time.
Proxies
Generate low poly versions to drive cloth simulation in Unreal.
Use the vertex color to set the “Max Distance” Mask.
Addons
Skinning
Select the joined mesh then the skeleton.
Parent with the right deforming setting.
Addons
Export
Select both Mesh & Skeleton, then export to FBX.
Cascadeur
Rig
Import FBX mesh & skeleton via “Add Model”.
Use the “Quick rigging tool” to create the basic prototypes.
Add manually other prototypes like weapons.
Tweak what has to be.
Tip
The direction of “Additional Controller” (like knee orientation) is calculated from the initial hinge angle. Bend the bones In order to have the right orientation.
Save the prototypes for future utilizations “Create JSON file...”.
Then “Create rig”.
Animations
Well, animate!
Root Motion
Find and select the “root_motion” joint in the outliner.
Then key the root motion position to follow the floor projection of your relevant center of mass.
Export
Export “Without Meshes”
Tip
Export binary FBXs
Unreal
Import Skeleton
Import the Blender FBX file containing the Mesh & Skeleton (Select an existing skeleton if relevant).
Import Animations
Import the Cascadeur FBX file containing the animation.
Retarget Animations
Select Rig “Humanoid” (everything should be found except “Root”)
Apply Preview Mesh.
Clothes
Proxy
Mask
Additional Props with Physics
